The science of weather is not an easy one to grasp, as the atmosphere is a complex fluid of rising, sinking, and circulating air. Of course, there are old school methods of forecasting weather, by analyzing ground and air observations and extrapolating that data into figuring out approximately where certain airmasses will travel to using textbook principles of physics, thermodynamics, and yes... calculus. That can get time-consuming and complicated. Thankfully, in today’s need-to-know-now world, we have computer models.

Winter in the Mid Atlantic and Northeast in some ways saved its best for last. The earlier half of the season had its moments, but it simply did not compare to what March ultimately brought. So what created such an active finish?

In many ways, the heart of 2018 winter that encompassed January and February was a wild ride of ups and downs in terms of both temperature and precipitation in the Midwest. While Chicago saw a significant increase in snowfall as compared to the prior year, it was mild weather and flooding rains that stole much of the headlines toward the end of the period in the Ohio Valley. There was plenty of significant weather to talk about, with a good deal of broken records as well.

With the recent cold and snow in early November, it certainly seems like summer-like weather has been gone a long time, doesn’t it? However, very warm weather that dominated the final half of September persisted through a good chunk of October. Circumstances changed significantly to close out the month and although severe weather was not particularly notable, active weather did highlight the period at times.

The Midwest once again found another month with major temperature swings in September as the transition to meteorological fall began. It was a cool beginning to September as a trough presided in the east with a large blocking ridge in the west. Ideally, this may have been a sign of the end the heat and a move over to cooler fall weather. However, summer decided to make a comeback instead.

For the first two months of the summer, it seemed as if rain was a daily occurrence. Not only was it an active period of time, in many cases, it was record-breaking between June and July. August then came around and the pattern broke to bring a much drier period. Still, it remained cooler than normal, staying consistent with the theme of the earlier part of the 2017 summer.

Rain has been a big part of the summer across the Midwestern United States so far. A high level of activity continued into July, with a multitude of heavy thunderstorm events that led to another surplus of rainfall for the region. Some of these events were severe with the amount of rainfall, to the point of flooding issues in the surrounding areas of the region’s major cities.

June 2017 came in as another wet month for the Midwest. The typical hot and stifling weather that the central United States can often see in June was held in check for at least another month, though bouts of it were felt throughout the period. This was thanks, partially, to the ample rainfall activity, which found its way into the record books quite a few times.

The ups and downs continued into the month of May, which followed a relatively cool March and another warmer than average month in April. May came in back on the downswing, and not only turned out on the cooler-than-average side, but was also fairly active in terms of rain and severe weather.

The run of well-above normal average temperatures was slowed in March courtesy of more frequent cold spells and even the re-emergence of snow. Once again, however, this was fairly short lived, as the warmer pattern roared back for the meteorological spring’s second month, April. In terms of the old adage “April showers bring May flowers,” there was certainly plenty of rain to go around in what turned out to be an active month as well.